Contents:
  1. Intro to Tay Sachs
  2. Causes
  3. Symptoms
  4. Research on Tay Sachs
  5. Tay Sachs Carrier Testing
  6. Bibliography



Symptoms of Tay Sachs disease


The symptoms of the Tay Sachs disease (TSD) are categorized into three types. The way that they are categorized are according to the age in which disabilities become present and the type of disabilities that the victim has. There is Infantile TSD, the most common form, which is generally the first six months of a child's life. There is Juvenile TSD which is very uncommon, and occurs between ages 2-10. The third type is Adult TSD which occurs somewhere between the ages of about 20-35. It is often misdiagnosed and it generally non-life threatening.

Infantile TSD, is the type that occurs early in a child's life, around the age of only three to six months old. When symptoms become present at this early age, the average age of death is approximately three to four years old. Usually, the infant does not show any symptoms of TSD until they reach the specified age (3-6 months).

The more obvious and visible symptoms include:
  • Being unable to smile,
  • Incapable of crawling
  • Incapable of grabbing
  • Incapable of rolling over
  • Becoming blind
  • Becoming deaf
  • Unable to swallow
  • A visible red spot at the back of their eye
  • Paralysis


In some cases, the disease will not be evident until later on in a child's life at ages two to ten. This is because they lack parts of the Hex-A rather than all, causing it to appear in later ages. The symptoms in this stage are:
  • Difficulty speaking
  • Slow reactions
  • and many of the symptoms listed above

The most uncommon and mistaken form of TSD is Adult TSD (also known as Late Onset TSD). The symptoms are similar to those who have it in their infant stages, however it is often non-fatal. Many patients diagnosed with Adult TSD are confined to wheelchairs, however are fully capable of living normal lives otherwise if properly medicated.

Source: "Symptoms of Tay-Sachs."
"Tay-Sachs Disease."


Research on Tay Sachs-->